


Trophies

by narsus



Series: Commerce [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Implied Incest, Implied Relationships, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-30
Updated: 2010-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strictly speaking, Sherlock is engaged in more than one profession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trophies

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to the BBC, Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat and obviously in the genesis of it all to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

"You're wearing my shirt." Sherlock observes, sounding bored, when John returns from putting out the bins.  
"It's not yours: you stole it from Mycroft."  
Sherlock shrugs. "Possession is nine tenths of the law."  
"Stealing Mycroft's old rugby shirt doesn't come under squatter's rights." John replies, feeling vaguely annoyed.

He'd needed to put something on quickly. If he hadn't rushed out with the bins they would have missed the garbage collection for another week, and considering what Sherlock probably does put in the rubbish that wouldn't have been a good idea. That argument made, John feels entirely justified in snatching something to wear from a chair and hurrying outside. It's only coincidental that it's Mycroft's and not Sherlock's at all.

"Anyway."  
Sherlock stares mournfully at him and half unfolds from where he's curled up on the couch to hold out a jar in John's direction.  
"Do I want to know?"  
"Open it for me. Please."  
"You can't..." John starts to laugh.  
"It's stuck. Don't laugh."  
John takes the jar from him and discovers that the lid is indeed stuck fast.  
"See. "  
"Hold on." John heads into the kitchen and rummages through a draw.  
"You won't be able to open it. You'll have to go to the shops and get some more." Sherlock reclines on the couch, hand to forehead, looking dramatic but sounding vaguely bored.  
"Here." John returns with the open jar in hand.  
"How-"  
"Physics."  
"Make me a cup of tea?"  
John sighs. "Fine."

One mug of beef tea later Sherlock seems to revive a little. He sits up, rather than sprawling across the couch, and he's unfolded himself enough that John can actually take stock of his current appearance. It is early morning which accounts for the pyjama bottoms and perhaps the growing chill of autumn would explain the worn hoodie, but, as far as John knows, there's no reason for said hoodie to be emblazoned with the abbreviation for the London School of Economics.

Sherlock notices John's staring of course and gives him a quizzical look in response.  
"Mycroft's?" John gestures with hi s mug. "He doesn't strike me as the type."  
"He isn't."  
"Ah."  
"Go on."  
"What?"  
"You evidently want to say something, so say it."  
John shakes his head, both amused and exasperated.  
"What? You have a question: I might give answers."  
"Sherlock." John chuckles.  
"I don't see what's so funny."  
"I, at least, have some social graces."  
"So?"  
"It would be rude."  
"Predictable."  
"What?"  
"Social graces, niceties, whatever you want to call it. They're ways to make interaction predictable, nothing more."  
"Right."  
"So you don't need to make things predictable for me."  
"What about myself?"  
"Boring."  
" _I'm_ boring?"  
"No, but you're making things boring, right now. I don't know why you do that to yourself."  
"Yes, you do. Did you just-"  
Sherlock's grin is feral. "Dull, isn't it?"  
John smiles ruefully. Sherlock has a point.

Sherlock holds his empty mug out to John without comment. John dutifully takes it from him and ambles back into the kitchen to make more tea. Crumpets go in the toaster as well, since they're both due breakfast by now. John puts jam on his and ignores Sherlock's mutterings about blasphemy from the living room. Sherlock eats his crumpets soaked in butter so John takes care to add extra on top so that it will have melted through by the time he walks back across the room.

"Alright then, whose top is it?" John asks as he sits down.  
Sherlock gives him a dour look. "Mine, _obviously_."  
"Right. Wrong question. Who's top _was_ it?"  
"Seb's." Sherlock says through a mouthful of crumpet.  
"Okay."  
"Stole it from his floor one morning, as if you can call that stealing."  
"You know, for two people who don't look like they get along with each other, you two are quite..."  
"Friendly?"  
"Friendly, yes, that's the word I was looking for."  
Sherlock mops up butter with a piece of crumpet, evidently waiting for John to continue.  
"Your gym towel has his bank's logo on it."  
"Freebie from a training event."  
"Right."  
"Come on, John, keep going. You might just deduce something after all."

It's a game, John realises. Whatever he figures out is all a game to Sherlock but, for once, it's not a malicious one. Sherlock is genuinely amused by John's observations, possibly because they're not so much observations of the facts but of the people.

"Mycroft doesn't buy your watches."  
To his credit, Sherlock looks mildly surprised.  
"Mycroft buys you phones. He always buys business models. So somebody else must be buying you fashionable watches."  
"Good. You're not bad at this at all."  
"You've- did you just pay me a compliment?"  
"I merely made an observation." Sherlock replies archly.  
"Observation. Right. So, anyway, what was I saying?"  
"Mycroft doesn't buy me watches." Sherlock supplies.  
"He buys you phones, and clothes." John forges on, picking up the thread again. "He buys practical things. He wouldn't buy you a new watch whenever it was fashionable, so someone else must be doing that." John's sure he's run out of observations and then inspiration strikes him. "He didn't buy your laptop either. It's a media model: you don't need that. There are cheaper ones that aren't as fashionable that would do the same job."  
"Brilliant." Says Sherlock dryly.  
"Yes, well."  
"He also didn't take me to the theatre last Wednesday afternoon. Nor did he make dirty jokes the whole way through 'Beneath a Moonless Sky'."  
"You went to see a musical together?" John is incredulous.  
" _He_ wanted to go: I just provided an excuse."  
"So... what? He just says his boyfriend wants to go watch something Lloyd Webber and pretends that he doesn't?"  
Sherlock shrugs. "I don't know. Interesting that you knew the song though."  
"Work." John replies, by way of explanation that doesn't sound like a genuine excuse at all.  
"Work."  
"It's not a good song really. All that business about it being fine if she can't see his face." A pause. "Do you- that was completely inappropriate. Sorry."  
"Do we-" And then Sherlock is laughing, uproariously.

When the laughing fit passes, leaving Sherlock giving in to infrequent soft chuckles, he graciously gathers up the used plates and takes them to the kitchen. John sits back and wonders what's come over him, over the both of them. He settles on focusing on telling himself that he really doesn't want to know if Sherlock and Sebastian have sex with or without the lights on.

"The timing's wrong, by the way." Sherlock says when he returns.  
"What?"  
"The laptop. The timing's wrong. Seb only got back in contact with me recently. We hadn't spoken for two years and my laptop is less than one year old."  
"But... Mycroft didn't buy it for you?"  
"No, he didn't."  
John frowns, a new idea looming large and cynical in his mind.  
"Go on."  
"Mycroft doesn't pay your rent either."  
"He doesn't." Sherlock confirms in quieter tones.  
"The police don't pay you but you rarely take on private work."  
"Correct."  
"How many 'old school chums' do you have?"  
Sherlock's sharp smile is answer enough.

John's heard quite a few things called the second oldest profession, politics among them, but there's always a debate as to which suggestion is most accurate. He's never heard anybody argue over which, of all the professions, came first.

"And I suppose they don't pay you outright?"  
Sherlock snorts. "Of course not. But what's a little money lending between friends?"

John wonders for a moment if that's how it's always phrased, if all of Sherlock's 'old friends' talk about lending him a bit to tide him over or paying back something they've owed him since whatever event they decide to name. Perhaps they do. There's a James Bond story, John recalls, where that's exactly how Bond pays a prostitute: he concocts the story of how they've known each other before and how he's only paying her back when he hands over the money publicly. Sherlock's friends are probably all like that. They pay him back or lend him money and suggest that he ought to spend a little time with them, to 'catch up'. Sometimes they probably send extra 'presents' like a laptop or a new watch or something else that Sherlock might want, but those things are never payment, just like Sherlock never sells his time.

"Interesting." Sherlock leans forwards, fingers steepled, elbows resting on his knees.  
"What?" John knows he sounds distracted.  
"You haven't called me a whore. I don't even think you're going to."  
"Should I? Would you prefer that?"  
"I'm... not sure." Sherlock sounds genuinely confused for a moment.

John is, he's certain, oddly brilliant today. Oddly perceptive. Then again, he's only reaching conclusions because Sherlock is giving up evidence, almost compulsively, as if he's after something, as if there's something he wants John to resolve for him. It's not that he sometimes sleeps with old classmates for money: if anything, Sherlock's official profession makes his other one very easy to disguise. If Sherlock is a whore, if that's the correct term to use, then he's a very expensive one. His clients are all very rich men, very influential men, men he could bring down with a simple, whispered, word. He's in no danger from any of them and they in turn understand that they're in no danger from him. It's a genial, comfortable, safe, transaction between young gentlemen of a certain background: nobody will tell tales on anybody else, though John's certain that Sherlock's contact details do get passed along to suitable, interested parties.

"Sex doesn't have to be about feelings." John says suddenly. Perhaps he is on form today after all.  
"Exactly." Sherlock's agreement is vehement enough to corroborate John's suspicion.  
"But...?"  
"Guess." Sherlock throws himself backwards against the couch in annoyance.  
"I don't have to."  
Sherlock's short snatch of laugher can't quite be called genuine.  
"You're going to have to tell him something."  
"Am I? Why would I want to do that?"  
John leans forwards in his chair. "Because..."  
"Because?"  
"He'll destroy your business otherwise."  
Sherlock gives John a level look.  
"He wants a boyfriend, not paid company, and when he finds out that you only have clients and not boyfriends he'll cause a fuss." John sits back. "You'll find it... bothersome to clear up, so you'd better deal with it now."  
"I will." A lazy smile.  
"You were always going to, weren't you?"  
"Of course." Sherlock pushes himself upright again.  
"They why did you...?"  
"Clients, John, come in many formats." Sherlock stands up, extending a hand to John as he does so.  
"I don't earn very much." John stands up as well.  
"You bought me a TV."  
John grasps Sherlock's hand and pulls him close. "Cheap little thing, aren't you?"

When John wakes up later he's alone in Sherlock's bed. The pillow smells of Sherlock's cologne and while the layers of duvet, throw and sleeping bag on top of the bed had surprised John, they're wonderfully warm. Sherlock had announced that he got cold easily and that, unlike Mycroft, he wasn't content to lie in state all night and not risk movement exposing him to the cold. Quite why Sherlock knows what position his brother prefers to sleep in, John doesn't know, and until this morning he wouldn't have worried about it. Now it makes him wonder, because Mycroft's rugby shirt and Sebastian's university hoodie aren't the only incongruous items in Sherlock's room. There's a thick, old fashioned, KCL scarf, another scarf bearing telltale college stripes, a cricket jumper with pale blue trim, that John's certain is some kind of university identifier, another rugby shirt with a university crest on it and a hoodie with large lettering that John can't read from this angle.

"Trophies." John says aloud.  
" _Obviously_."  
John barely has time to register that Sherlock has dived back into bed with him when cold feet are being pressed against his shins, almost as if Sherlock is trying to somehow climb up him.  
"Stop that."  
"Cold."  
John manoeuvres them both so that they're lying on their sides, facing each other. He tucks a hand under the pillow and drapes his free arm across Sherlock.  
Sherlock presses himself to John, ducking his head so that his forehead rests against John's shoulder.  
John smiles, rubbing his hand along Sherlock's side. "You're wearing my t-shirt, aren't you?"  
"I was cold."  
"That one was in my room."

It's the regimental, British Army insignia, t-shirt of course. Sherlock wouldn't have wanted any of the other ones. He's like a magpie collecting trinkets, except, so John suspects, the trinkets aren't collected at random. He has Sebastian's LSE hoodie because Sebastian is more than a mere client, in either sense. He's wearing John's army t-shirt because John isn't a client either.

"Do I want to know why you have Mycroft's shirt?" John asks, and feels Sherlock begin to laugh against his collarbone.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Beneath a Moonless Sky' is from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies.  
> The James Bond story is 'From a View to a Kill' where Bond is fantasising about trying to enjoy Paris again, right before he gets called away by duty again.  
> Since John trained at Bart's (as part of QMUL) it's possible that he might recognise the standard colours of another of the four premier colleges of the University of London (though Imperial College ceded from the union in 2007).  
> The cricket jumper with pale blue trim would be Cambridge Blues, awarded to someone who has fulfilled various criteria in competing in university sports.


End file.
